


Sweet Dreams (who am i to disagree?)

by Jasper01



Series: Renegades! [3]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Betrayal, Blood, Blood and Violence, Boys In Love, Character Death, Cuddling & Snuggling, Death, Dreams and Nightmares, Drowning, Dystopia, Explosions, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gun Violence, Happy Ending, Injury, M/M, Major Character Injury, Nightmares, Not Really Character Death, Pain, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Shooting, Sleepy Cuddles, Stabbing, Stargazing, Swearing, Violence, Vomiting, War, everything hurts and I want my mum, ouchies, suffocation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-05 14:10:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20490164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jasper01/pseuds/Jasper01
Summary: Logan knows that the chances of surviving a war unscathed in body or mind are infinitesimal.Sometimes, that doesn't make things any easier.(But Patton always manages to find him in his low moments.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Part 4 of Renegades! Or: And they were <strike>roommates!</strike> kids on the run from a totalitarian government! (No, you didn't miss Part 3; I'm just terrible at writing things in order. 3 will be up soon.)
> 
> The boys are mid-late twenties here.
> 
> Did I reference one of Eurythmics' songs in the title? I absolutely did.
> 
> Also, feel free to come chat/ask me questions on Tumblr! I live at [friendlyfacestabbing](https://friendlyfacestabbing.tumblr.com).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is easily the darkest thing I've written yet. (The tags are no joke you guys. Stay safe and there's a summary in the chapter end note.)  
It does end happily, with fluff even! But that is not this part.  
Jets and Blue are characters you will meet later in the AU, but they only appear very briefly here. They are some of the other kids on the rebel base, and Logan grew up with them. (Blue and Logan sometimes chat about ancient mythology. Jets manages to wear heelies on a para-military base.)

_It's an ambush,_ Logan thinks to himself.

He can fight, but he's a specialist, not a soldier. Dealing with rebels is someone else's job, so he stays inside the armoured vehicle, and lets the convoy around him open fire on the muddy ghosts in the trees. That's what they're there for.

Until the troop carrier two in front of his goes up in a roar and a sheet of flame. The rebels have weakened the convoy's defensive line, and are getting concerningly close to the other vehicles. If they take the convoy, they capture Logan. So he can sit tight and hope the troops around him hold, or he can step out into the maelstrom of metal and fire, and take a few of the rebels with him before he's killed.

It's barely a choice, and Logan is already moving, already armoured and armed. The wash of sheer sound slams into him, but there's a quiet bright sterile place in the back of his mind that he stands in as he surveys the carnage around him.  
_First things first,_ and he smoothly aims and fires at the running figures advancing on his position.

_Time to move._

He slips rearward along the convoy, into the shelter provided by the heavy armoured assault vehicle. The gunner in the turret registers his presence, but doesn't so much as nod as he pours a solid wall of white hot lead up the embankment into the trees.

A figure dashes out of the swirling smoke towards him, firing blindly in his general direction. Logan drops them with a better placed burst of fire, and when they fall their long red plaits flop across their eyes and soak into the mud.  
_Blue,_ he thinks. And then, _Why do I know her name?_

The turret gunner manages to hit something important amongst the rebels, and the explosion from on top of the embankment throws debris in every direction. Logan takes cover from the shrapnel, and watches as a helmet bounces off the vehicle in front of him. The helmet has cartoon heelies painted on it.  
_Jets,_ Logan thinks. _Oh no,_ Logan thinks.

There is movement around the vehicle in front of him. One of the rebels has crept down the convoy aiming to silence the turret gunner and stop the hail of lead. The rebel doesn't see Logan crouched and motionless, and it's the work of a moment to fire into the back of his head. Logan knows without looking that the body at his feet belonged to Thomas Sanders.  
_I don't want to,_ Logan thinks.

There is a yell loud enough to be heard over the shooting from behind him. Logan whirls and deflects the cut coming towards his face with an armoured forearm.  
_What kind of halfwit brings a sword to a gun fight?_ he thinks. _Oh Roman,_ he thinks, and traps the blade against the side of the vehicle and raises his rifle one handed to shoot Roman Kingsley point blank. The corpse falls backward into the mud, lovely and silent and still.

Something shoves Logan immeasurable hard in the back, and he goes sprawling.  
_Pistol shot,_ he thinks through the ringing in his ears and specks across his vision. His tactical vest has taken care of the bullet, but the impact has still sent him reeling. Someone shoots him in the back again, and Logan cannot draw air with the screaming pain from his torso. A heavy boot crushes down between his shoulder-blades, and he can feel the pistol pointed at the back of his head.

_ **Click.** _

The rebel frowns and reaches to reload, and the moment's inattention is Logan's chance of survival. He flips himself over, catches the rebel's foot and brings them to the ground. The pistol goes flying and Logan gropes for the knife at his side. They scuffle, but Logan is slightly stronger, slightly heavier, slightly taller. Application of force is just leverage, just simple physics. The blade slips neatly under the purple plaid at the rebel's throat, and Virgil Sanders swears and curses until blood bubbles at his lips and he falls silent.

Logan pushes himself to his knees, feeling the creak of his back and the burning in his lungs as he inhales.  
Running footsteps slop through the mud towards him, and then halt a short distance away. Logan lifts his head, and sees another familiar face. _“Hey we have the same glasses!” "... Yep."_  
Logan knows how he looks, filthy and bloodstained, on his knees with broken bodies scattered around him.

“We wondered where you'd gotten to,” Patton says. “Spent years looking for you too.”

“Not looking anymore I take it?” Logan wheezes out.

“No, Lo. I guess we thought you were dead,” Patton huffs out in a half embarrassed laugh, despite the dead and the blood and the pain and the war and the years between them, and the fact that _they never found him._

“You mean you hoped I was dead.” Logan can feel the rage under his skin, so cold he burns with it.

“Logan, that's not fair,” Patton says softly, kind and sad all in one.

Logan lunges for his discarded rifle, and Patton fires and misses.  
_He won't miss again,_ and Logan aims blindly and manages to hit Patton's legs. Patton falls forwards with a yell, still clutching his rifle, and Logan is on him in an instant. He shoves Patton's face into the mud but Patton manages to jerk himself up with a startled yelp. Logan pushes him back down, tangles his fingers in Patton's soft hair and puts all his body weight into it. Patton thrashes underneath him, but can't get enough purchase to throw Logan off.

_Leverage,_ Logan thinks.

He keeps up the pressure as Patton struggles and suffocates beneath him. Patton shudders and goes still, but Logan holds him in the mud for another fifteen seconds just to make sure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Summary: Logan is in a convoy that is attacked by rebels. Some of the rebels are Thomas Sanders, Roman Kingsley, Virgil Sanders, and Patton Hart. Logan fights and kills each of them. Logan and Patton have a brief conversation before they fight, in which Patton mentions that Logan went missing some time ago, and although he was searched for he was never found and was assumed to be dead. Logan accuses Patton of hoping he was dead, which Patton says isn't fair. They attack each other and Patton is killed.  
Throughout the chapter Logan's thinking is questioning how he knows these people.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A character throws up at the beginning of this chapter (first sentence), and processes the memory of the events recounted in Chapter 1. I don't think there's anything else to watch out for, but please let me know if I've missed something.

Logan slams awake and makes it to the metal bin by the door before he throws up. He comes back to himself on his knees on the canvas floor, clinging to the doorframe to stay upright. His forehead rests against the wall of the tent, and the moisture from outside comes through the canvas and paints chills across his hairline. He claws his way to his feet, staggers back to his stretcher bed and gropes around until he finds his glasses. He fumbles them onto his face and looks around wide-eyed at the murky dark of the tent's interior. One of his tent-mates stares at him through bleary eyes, before rolling over and going back to sleep. They've all done their share of waking up gasping, unsure of where or when they are. (Logan knows that his tent-mates appreciate the fact that he isn't a screamer.)

He also knows he won't get any more sleep after _that_, so he pulls on his boots, pockets a torch, and shoves through the rickety door out into the sleeping camp. The cool air settles him a little, and he throws back his head and just breathes in the darkness and starlight. The camp looks otherworldly in the very early morning. The moonlight paints khaki into silver, and the moisture condensed on the canvas makes everything shimmer in the dark. Inhaling feels clean and good, like rain, like dusk, like mist in the early morning.

Logan holds onto that first breath for as long as he can until it rushes out of him again. He can still smell mud in his nose and feel soft curls between his fingers so he strides <strike>desperately</strike> purposefully in the direction of the shower block. It's deserted at this hour, and the lights are disconnected to preserve the fuel for the generators. No matter, he grabbed a torch for exactly this situation.

Logan strips off and methodically scrubs to remove the blood that isn't there, lets the water remind of where he is (and isn't). _Rebel camp, 0407 hours. You got out. They never took you back. Never sent you to kill your family._

_They're alive. You never killed them. They're alive. They're **alive**._

He realises that he is sobbing quietly, and suddenly the assurance of logic isn't enough and he _needs_ to see that he isn't what his worst nightmares imagine him as. He perfunctorily towels off, throws on his clothes and nearly bolts from the showers.

Even in the dark Logan knows his way, and he strides quickly down the well-worn path and moves with laser guided intensity to the tent he remembers better than his own. He doesn't bother going round to the door, because the tent flaps are up and he can see a huddled form on the cot in the corner. Gentle moonlight slips through the netting and catches on metal framed glasses resting on the battered shelving; a warm body moving rhythmically in sleep. _See? Patton's alive. He's breathing. He's asleep. He's fine. You didn't hurt him._ The relief loosens Logan's joints and the tension he hadn't even noticed evaporates, leaving him gasping softly and trembling.

“Lo?” a soft sleep-thick voice whispers.

“I... sorry Patton. I did not mean to wake you. I will go-”

“No. Stay there. I'll come out.”

And Patton is rolling out of his sleeping bag, and reaching for his glasses and boots. Meanwhile Logan is quietly kicking himself. Sleep is precious, especially uninterrupted dreamless sleep. And he knows as well as anyone how lightly they all sleep, ready to wake at a moment's notice, a sound out of place, the feeling of eyes on your back. _He should not have woken Patton; this is not fair to Patton; he should-_

“Hey, I can hear you thinking from over here,” says Patton kindly. “What's going on?”

Patton is standing in the moonlight before him and Logan just looks and tries to make something come out of his useless mouth, but he could not find words for this if his life depended on it. But his face must be speaking for him, because Patton seems to understand anyway.

“Oh,” says Patton, and steps close and Logan is wrapped in warm arms with a well-worn t-shirt under his cheek and the thud of Patton's heart by his ear. _Oh, and this is __**everything**_ _and touching is so much better than looking._ Logan reaches and traces his hands up Patton's broad back, follows familiar planes of muscle across his shoulder-blades, up to the base of his neck and through the soft curls there an- _mud cold screaming fire Patton dead dead __**dead**_ _under his hands-_

He leaps back and throws his hands out in front of him to keep Patton away. Keep him _safe._

“Oh,” Patton whispers again. And then so slowly, _gently_, takes one of his outstretched hands.

Logan cannot bear it a second longer.

“I drowned you.” The words rip out of him, and he waits to see what Patton will do with them _(with him)_.

Patton appears to be considering for a moment, and then he nods and hums. “Yeah, I figured it was something like that.”

They stand holding hands for a long moment in the hush and darkness, before Patton smiles at him fondly, squeezes his hand and asks, “Stargazing?”

And Logan can only nod.


	3. Chapter 3

Patten leads him by the hand through the darkened camp. Logan follows along like a balloon on a string. He already knows their destination.

The majority of rebel base structures are tents, as they are compact and easy to transport, and relatively fast to put up and take down. The exceptions are more important facilities like the armoury, main kitchen, and operating theatre, which all have solid walls and roofs.  
In a crowded base, escaping to get some peace and quiet is essential to sanity, and a roof is as good a spot to hide as any. However, people climbing onto the Armoury roof is guaranteed to utterly freak out base security, which is bad. People messing about on the kitchen roof is the fastest way to piss off the cooks, which is the fastest way to piss off the entire camp of traumatised, combat proficient, heavily-armed people, which is so very very bad it defies explanation.

Which leaves the Operating Theatre roof.

There is Roof Etiquette, one of the customs borne out of living in very close contact with others, and observed by everyone.  
Sneaking out onto the roofs is technically against the rules. Nevertheless, everyone does it. No one talks about it.  
There is a rope hanging at the base of the route up. If the rope is across the climbing spot, it means that someone else beat you up there.  
You _may_ knock on the down-pipe, if you decide you don't mind sharing the roof with someone else, and if they give you the all clear, you may climb up.  
If they tell you to sod off, sod off, and try another spot or another night.

On a warm night, it is almost guaranteed that the roof will be already taken. The weather tonight is clear, but a bit cooler, so Logan is cautiously optimistic about their chances.

_Damn. Nevermind_. The rope is across, therefore the roof is clearly occupied.

Patton turns to Logan, lifting his eyebrows in a silent question of _“Want to stargaze anyway?”_

Logan thinks, decides getting even slightly above the camp is worth sharing the roof with someone else, and taps rhythmically on the down-pipe.

There is a pause, and then the sound of movement from above. A head pokes over the edge of the roof, silhouetted against the night sky, and a voice calls softly down to Logan and Patton.

“Specs! Come on up!”

It's Roman, and he sounds delighted at the prospect of their company. Logan gratefully feels some of the residual tension wash out of him. _Roman is alive and well and sitting on the Operating Theatre roof, not lying dead at his feet._

Logan begins the quick scramble onto the sheet metal roof, and mutters as he climbs, “How did you know it was me?”

“Please. Of course it's you, my metronomic friend! And Patton's here as well! Wonderful!”

“Hi Ro.” Patton giggles at Roman's generous welcome, as though he were a gracious host welcoming travellers to his stately home, not a war-weary fugitive sneaking out at 4am.

There is a lumpy pile of blankets and spare canvas behind Roman, smuggled onto the roof to ward off the chill and moisture. The pile sits up, and Virgil's gravelly voice comes out of the dark.

“Is this a social event, or did you two want a private party?”

Patton looks at Logan for his answer, and Logan is briefly breathless with relief. Logan's brain remains vaguely convinced that Virgil's blood is still warm on his hands. Finding Virgil half asleep and unharmed feels like a minor miracle.

“Social,” Logan croaks out around the tightness in his throat.

“Splendid!” declares Roman.

“Dibs on a middle spot,” mumbles Virgil.

There are a few minutes of well-practised shuffling and negotiation of blankets, but within a pleasantly short amount of time Logan finds himself flat on his back on the metal. His family is curled around him in various stages of wakefulness (Patton to his left, Virgil and then Roman to his right), and a brilliant night sky slowly spins above him. The grief and terror of the last few hours _(years)_ is still present, but mellowed in the presence of those he loves above all else.

“Roman?” Logan asks into the dark.

“Hmm?”

“Promise me you will never be so foolhardy as to attack a vehicle convoy with a sword.”

There is a pause while everyone processes this request.

“Specs, I'm bold, dashing, and courageous. Not insane. I'm not about to take only a _sword_ to a tank fight.”

“Princey, you are a fruit-loop, and you totally would bayonet charge a tank,” Virgil chimes in.

“I most certainly would not! That's suicidal! And I have far too much to live for.”

“Oh really? Like what? The next live-action Disney remake?!”

“Actually, I was thinking of a certain gorgeous emo thundercloud who makes my heart sing every time his beautiful face is before mine, but eh, Disney works too I guess.”

“You- I- um- gah! Roman! You can't _say_ stuff like that!”

“Watch me, oh heart of mine.”

“Shut up! I'm going to kill you!”

“Starlight personified.”

“Going to push you right off this roof!”

“And I love you too darling.”

“Oh my _god_.”

Patton is shaking with laughter, and Logan looks over to see Virgil with his hands up over his face and his ears visibly red even in the dark. Roman is snuggled in behind Virgil and is smiling happily. Roman glances up and meets Logan's gaze, and his smile softens.

“In answer to your question Logan, I wish to live, and have every intention of using the very best weaponry I can lay my hands on.”

“Good,” Logan looks upwards and whispers to the stars. “That is... good, and I am glad to hear it.”

There is a comfortable silence, broken when Virgil asks, “You okay L?”

Logan sighs. “It is nothing out of the ordinary. Just dreams.”

The night is briefly filled with noises of understanding, reassurance, sympathy. No one asks for details. Logan knows that if he were to tell them the specifics they would listen, as he has listened to them on occasion.  
He does not wish to tell them the specifics. It is enough that they are alive and close by.

Patton nudges his shoulder and whispers, “Better?”

Logan stares at him, silver in the moonlight, and presses a gentle kiss to his forehead. “Better.”


	4. Epilogue (Sleeper Awake)

The star-field turns.

Logan is awake to watch it.

Roman is snoring quietly, and Virgil is sound asleep against Roman's chest.

Patton. Patton is a warm weight half burrowed against his side.

Logan knows he loves Patton. Knows he has loved Patton for an indeterminately long period of time. Knows that “love” is an inadequate descriptor of the sensation within him, but it is the best word he has found thus far. (He is still searching for a better one.)

The indigo sky and dazzling stars pale into grey, as dawn creeps inexorably closer.

Patton snuffles against Logan's shoulder.

Logan's heart goes soaring across the wide pink-tinged sky.

_This. Oh please, **this**._

Dawn breaks softly, slowly, and then all at once. Logan glances down, and watches in captivated awe as the colour dances across Patton's skin.  
Patton's glasses are askew in his hair, and the golden light turns them into a crown; Patton's brow wreathed in filigree and fire.

Logan smiles. It is going to be a glorious day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (And then the sun lands on Virgil's face, and he grumbles and hides. When it really is too light to stay asleep, he rolls out of his blanket pile, stands on the roof, faces the sun, and screams, _**"FUCK OFF!!!"**_
> 
> And that is how the entire camp starts the day.)
> 
> Do you have theories? Questions? Unbridled rage? Come chat on Tumblr! I live at [friendlyfacestabbing](https://friendlyfacestabbing.tumblr.com).


End file.
